June 14, 2003

• *updated

  Photos from ML voice recording session with Los Lobos!
  Season 2, Episode 9: “Hungry Like Los Lobos”

  

  with Joel (left) and Ken (right)

  

  with Jorge and Sandra

  

  Our design of them! © WB Animation
  (Note: this isn’t the final version that is used in the show)

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  *updated

   The Sweatbox!

  We all went and saw The Sweatbox tonight at Dendy Opera Quays (Sydney Film Festival) – Michael, Evan, Peter, Gavin, Eddie and myself.

  I wish I could say GO AND SEE THIS FILM but ours was the final festival screening ever… Disney has decided to put the film in the vault so it will never ever be distributed. According to the co-director John Paul Davidson (who made an appearance at the screening), Disney thought the film made them look “indecisive” and “wasteful with their millions of dollars”…

  What an awesome documentary. The best part was seeing the line tests from “Kingdom of The Sun”. The animation of the Eartha Kitt character was absolutely stunning. Eartha Kitt herself, singing in the recording session, was a treat to watch. To think we will never see these moments ever again. Someone needs to release a bootleg DVD or put this movie on the internet.

  During the Q&A session with John Paul Davidson, an audience member commented on the closing quote from Sting - praising the Disney creative-”by committee”-process. That it was frustrating to hear Sting say something like this after he’d been knocking Disney all throughout the film..

  (Great Sting quote: “They take all these different wonderful cultures, mix them up and spit out a hamburger” )

  Interestingly enough, Mr Davidson admitted that the end statement in the film was a CHEAT. The pro-Disney comment by Sting was actually made years earlier… BEFORE “Kingdom of the Sun” had mutated into “Emperors New Groove”…

  Discussion thread at Animation Nation

  From one of the posts:

  …the real story of Disney Feature Development has yet to be told. I think this film is a good start — it’s certainly more revealing than most “making of” documentaries. But there are so many missing beats here, you’ve got to wonder what was left on the cutting room floor. Ending as it does with Sting’s grudging admission that the process “works,” despite his earlier, fully-justified misgivings, seemed like a kind of sop to Disney (“Please don’t block distribution of our film!”)

  It didn’t hit me ’til this morning, but I found “The Sweatbox” an extremely depressing experience — not so much for what it did show as for what it didn’t. As bad as this film seems to indicate that the process can be — believe me, being there was ten times worse. To stare into Peter Schneider’s weasly little eyes again, to feel the icy malice of his mean little mind, picking and tearing away at your work like a vulture on a still-breathing carcass, the sheer delight manifest on his face when he’s certain that he’s right because he’s the guy on top and your’e not — even with the distance that watching a movie gives, it brings a shudder to your very soul. - Bruce

  Eddie:  These are my sentiments exactly – I can only imagine the horror stories left on the cutting room floor.  I also feel the film makers were really dishonest in taking Sting’s last quote (‘the process works…’) totally out of context to placate Disney.  VERY shabby!

  The guy I felt most for was the animator (Andreas Deja) who did the MASTERFUL animation of Eartha Kitt’s vocal performance, for the original ‘Kingdom Of The Sun’.  Clearly, this guy put his soul into his work, and chanelled Eartha herself in his work.  To be replaced and have his work never see the light of day, is one of the cruel, cruel aspects of our industry.  It really makes any lost opportunities we’ve had seem very petty by comparison…I will never whinge about ‘Superior Pets’ ever again!

  • 12:16 am
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